Cooking with Math

Cooking = Food

Food = Good Taste

Tasty Food = Happiness

By this simple proof I’ve decided that since I like to be happy I must also like to cook. I mean it’s pretty hard to deny that if A = B and B = C than A should also equal C. I’m not sure if it’s so. I don’t want to dismiss this obviously astounding mathematical proof I’ve created, but I’m having trouble with the solution.

I’ve been thinking a little bit about this as my wife has started to blog again. Patricia has had a blog for a while but wasn’t really into it. Now that she is contributing to the new recipe blog, new posts are popping up all the time. She is making cool new recipes at home where we are trying them out and then she posts it up for the world to see. As I peruse the page, I find that while I understand how to cook, and can follow a recipe, I’m not sure I like cooking.

There are people who think blogging is pointless. How can you spend countess hours typing up something that only a handful of people will ever see and even fewer will comment on? The answer is simple, because it’s fun for me. I enjoy dreaming up new things to talk about and funny ways of putting it.

Cooking is one of those things that I feel that way about. Why would I spend all that time, energy and resources on something I could just purchase? I mean, why spend two hours making chicken curry when the Indian restaurant is five minutes away? They welcome me with open arms, thick accents and giant vats brownish indistinguishable food substances. There are no tears from chopping onions, no stress from mixing spices, and best of all clean up is a styrofoam container!

The exception to this feeling is BBQing. I feel that I do truly enjoy BBQing food. I’d much rather cook on the BBQ than in the oven. Why would this be more rewarding? Again when answers are hard to find we turn to simple logic and bad math.

BBQing = Fire

Fire = Danger

Men = Stupid

If it has the possibility of death involved, it has just moved from chore to sport. I am a pyromaniac. Most men I know are. If we get to play with fire we’re there! Additionally there is no measuring. I don’t need half a teaspoon of this or a one cup and three quarters of that. I just smatter on as much as I want and then stoke the fire up to near heatstroke levels. Is that cooking? I think so, I mean it comes out hot and mostly the food is digestible.

Do I like good food? Yes. Do I like to cook? Sometimes. I don’t know if anyone has the answer. Maybe it’s one riddle that even bad math and weak logic can't solve.

Well - ok - if you were going for bad math - then it is fine - - - - but having taught Algebra and Geometry for 10 years - I tried and tried to make it work and it didn't - - - but that is like most of my students - ok with equations that didn't work :):)